Women-only carriages?

[Roderick Smith]

Women-only carriages would stop sexual assault on public transport.
Herald Sun August 3, 2017.
WOMEN-only carriages and services could be the answer to the sexual abuse epidemic occurring on Australian public transport.
This week’s discussion about the sexual assault and harassment of university students failed to acknowledge that much of this abuse is taking place on the way to campus or back again.
In 2015 and 2016, an average of 22 per cent of uni students were harassed, and 15 per cent were assaulted, while travelling to or from uni.
The Human Rights Commission report also shows alarmingly few women report these incidents, which mostly took place on public transport.
As someone who was harassed just over a year ago on a Melbourne train, I know how frightening it can be.
A women’s only train in Indonesia. AP Photo/Irwin Fedriansyah
A man came over to sit opposite me on an otherwise empty train and wedged his knees — which were spread wide apart — between my legs. The seats were close together so it was most uncomfortable and it meant his crotch was in my face as I bent over to pick up my bags and get away from him. He was crooning “baby, baby”.
I got up immediately and went to stand by the door, but it really scared me. It was the end of the line so I knew he was getting off at the same stop.
This meant I was too terrified to even take a photo of him in case he would come after me.
I posted a brief account on my News with Suse Facebook page and was amazed at
the response from some readers.
I was told it sounded like I was “making it up” and accused of “playing a genderist misandrist card”.
I was also hounded by hundreds of readers who abused me for not going to the police and getting CCTV footage — seeing this as evidence that it didn’t even happen.
The reality was that I didn’t get a photo even though I wish I’d had the courage to take one.
In the moment I didn’t get to be a hero and save others from this creep — I just wanted to get away safely.
Let’s be very clear: a failure to report is no evidence that the incident didn’t take place or wasn’t serious.
It’s a sign the system is broken because people don’t think they will be believed or don’t think anything can be done.
A women only carriage in Tokyo.
Perhaps it’s time for women-only “pink carriages” as floated last year by the Rail, Tram and Bus Union in NSW.
Such trains are already in place in many other countries such as India, Iran, Indonesia and Japan.
It shouldn’t be necessary, but clearly more needs to be done to make women and girls in particular safer on public transport.
The problem with public transport is that it’s difficult to get away, and the enclosed spaces and crowding offer proximity and anonymity.
Victoria Police figures show sexual assaults on buses and trams increased by 35 per cent and up 12 per cent on trains in 2015.
Given that women are the vast majority of the victims and men the perpetrators, why not trial women’s-only spaces, particularly at night when overcrowding wouldn’t be an issue?
It’s not good enough that students are being told — as they were yesterday — to steer clear of boozy college parties, avoid uni accommodation and watch out on public transport.
With both public transport use and sexual assault on the rise, it’s clear real change is needed.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinio ... a853a120c2

[Roderick Smith]

Roderick.

August 10 2017 Women's fear of certain public spaces cannot be ignored.
Ask any woman about her experiences of public space and you're likely to be met with a visible bristle as she remembers all the times she was subjected to unwanted harassment, abuse or even physical violence.
Public space can be dangerous for everybody (and in fact, men's risk of violence is drastically higher in such places than it is in domestic settings), but it tends to be dangerous for women in very specific ways.
Public transport is one of the biggest areas of safety concern for girls and women. Photo: Stocksy .
Unfortunately, this risk to women is also countered by a mistrust of women's testimonies. When we talk about our experiences of harassment and violence, we are often told we're either overreacting or lying outright. The scepticism shown to women (not only from men but also from other women) crosses between both the private and public spheres, but the latter is especially galling in a society that uses the threat of Stranger Danger to try to control women's behaviour.
Simply put, we are told to exercise caution in public because of "bad people", but we are disbelieved when we take charge of our narratives and offer accounts of the very things we are told to be afraid of.
Public transport is one of the biggest areas of safety concern for girls and women, with many of us going out of our way to avoid certain lines or stations particularly after dark. But our fears aren't limited solely to the use of public transport – access to and from stations and stops is also a cause for concern, especially if that access involves walking down dimly-lit streets.
I have friends who avoid walking home from public transport stops after certain times, choosing to catch taxis instead. Leaving aside the financial burden this places on women, the risk of harm to women who use taxis and rideshare services has also been well documented.
So for many of us, it becomes a coin toss between which scenario you think is less likely to see you come to harm, as opposed to actually being safe.
Again, it's difficult to discuss these issues openly without being met with extreme resistance. The mass social gaslighting that's always in operation whenever women discuss issues of safety and risk has convinced many of us that it's not worth it to speak openly about it.
Hotspot: Richmond station. Photo: Michael Clayton-Jones .
Instead, we share our information with each other along the grapevine. Don't catch this line at this time, avoid this station completely and beware this area right now because a guy just trailed me in his car as I was walking home.
In this way, women can clumsily collate the information we need to make more informed choices about our safety without having to run the risk of being mocked for caring about it in the first place.
This is partly why Plan Australia's Free To Be project, analysis from which was released on Thursday, is so powerful. With the help of XYX Lab, the organisation mapped the experiences of girls and women using public transport across Victoria over two months in late 2016 to collate a more comprehensive picture of the areas that were considered "happy" or "sad" for commuters' use.
More than 1300 pins and 600 comments were left on the interactive map, with the vast majority of respondents (72 per cent) aged below 30.
Many had experienced incidents of sexual harassment and/or abuse. One respondent recounted the time she was chased along the Richmond train platform by a group of drunk men. Another talked about being on board a train while a man stared at her intensely. When she disembarked at Flinders Station (a major interchange) he followed her and boarded her next train. "No one helped me," she said.
Other "sad" stations noted were Brunswick, Jewell, Footscray and Box Hill, with respondents citing a heightened sense of caution particularly where lighting is dim and uniformed safety officers were lacking.
Addressing this lack of safety for women isn't just vital because of the current and immediate impact it has on lives. If public spaces are dismissive or hostile to women's specific safety needs, women will avoid using that space. It's an insidious way to undermine women's right to participate in public life in the same way men do, because the playing field is uneven from the get go.
This isn't just my own feminist take – it's the findings of almost every major research study done on how public space accommodates women's safety needs.
Australia lags behind other countries when it comes to addressing how public space can either exacerbate gender inequality or improve outcomes for those marginalised by it, so the work of XYX Lab is a welcome (and long overdue) response that must be capitalised on by policymakers and urban planners.
Fundamentally, the drive to design cities with the needs of girls and women in mind is a way to advance gender equality, rather than shift privilege from one group to another. The United Nations recognised how important these considerations were way back in 2001, stating in a report: "when a space is occupied by women and girls, it is also occupied by more people in general."
It is not up to girls and women to fit themselves into a society that was traditionally built for men who dominated public space. It's up to a progressive, advanced society to recognise that the landscape has changed, and adjust itself accordingly.
Clementine Ford is an author and Fairfax Media columnist.
Related Articles:
We urgently need to make public transport safer for women.
Sexual violence harms all women, including non-victims.
http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/news ... xt8f4.html

[ZIB-585]

But it's perfectly safe when waiting at train stations or walking to or from the station?

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

[Free Lance]

What's next, restricted carriages for every minority group, the list will go on forever, I can't list them all for fear or missing one group out and then being called a Racist. "LGBTI" now there is five carriages for each individual group, then special carriages fro children travelling alone, will have to separate teen agers and pre teens and will they need separate carriages for all three "gender groups"
Of course seniors will need special consideration as we all need seats. that could be in the hundreds on certain services.
No train is that long or do we make the carriages shorter and maybe have 15 or 20 carriages on each train, the other option would be for a train to stop twice at each station o that all doors would have platform access,

LORD GIVE ME STRENGTH.

[busrider]

Or maybe instead of changing train consists to suit societal ills, maybe we should fix the societal ills so all people can share the same train carriages...